Betty Phillips

Born in Vancouver in 1923.

Betty (Muriel) Phillips. Mezzo-soprano, actress, BA (British Columbia) 1976.  She began her singing career in Richmond High School musicals and appeared at TUTS for the first time in a 1946 production of Robin Hood and subsequently played leads in more than 20 TUTS productions until 1960; she is best remembered for the role of Mrs. Anna in The King and I.

Her radio career began in 1948 with the CBC in Vancouver and has included regular appearances on the CBC’s ‘Leicester Square to Broadway’; variety work in 1955 on the BBC; solo, recital, and folksong performances on the CBC; and many British Columbia school broadcasts 1970-2. On CBC TV she sang Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus in 1954, co-starred 1956-7 with Ernie Prentice on ‘Lolly-too-dum,’ and was hostess 1965-7 for ‘Bazaar.’

Phillips has performed at the Vancouver International Festival and with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and has appeared in Vancouver Opera productions in 1961, 1963, 1964, 1965; and 1966.

 She has performed in musical comedy throughout Canada and sang locally in Theatre-in-the-Park productions of The Sound of Music (1974) and Fiddler on the Roof (1975), while studying 1972-6 at the University of British Columbia. In the first Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company season (1963) she appeared as Mme. Dubonnet in The Boy Friend and has continued to act for that company over the years. She has been in over 40 Canadian and US movies, some of them feature films and the others made for television.

In 1962 Phillips married the actor, writer, and librettist Peter Haworth.